Selectmen sign on to affordable housing plan

BY TOM REILLY

Thursday

Sep 6, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Town Planner Laurie Connors came to the select board last week with a revised version of an affordable housing plan for the town.

Connors had appeared before the board last month seeking a letter to the state saying the board was submitting a final housing plan to the state for approval. However, the selectmen asked Connors to solicit additional comments from other town boards and committees. Connors said she had forwarded the document to the School Committee, the Planning Board, the Assessors office, the Board of Appeals and the Housing Partnership. Only the Planning Board requested any changes, and those were incorporated into the plan, she said.

Phil DiMartino of the state Department of Housing and Community Development assured the select board that creating an affordable housing plan would not penalize the town in any way. DiMartino said more than 90 communities have submitted the type of plan that Connors was advocating. About 74 of these had been approved and 11 had achieved certification.

DiMartino said that what Connors was proposing was voluntary but that it was a good idea to get ahead of 40B "because communities are oftentimes intimidated by the production goals, which are frankly quite high." It is very hard to achieve certification, but it is even more difficult if a 40B project comes into town and there is no plan, he said. "You don't get any sort of breathing room."

DiMartino said the state was contemplating changing 40B including lowering production goals because "it's not a very popular law on the local level, so we're looking at revamping it."

He saw no downside to implementing the plan and added that it would make it easier for the town to apply for certain state grants. Some communities are afraid that having a plan draws 40B developers, but DiMartino said it didn't work that way. Developers were more likely to cooperate with towns that had plans or might avoid them entirely rather than be caught in a moratorium.

Selectman Joe Coggans asked who would make up the difference in property taxes between affordablerate units versus what these units would have sold for on the open market.

DiMartino noted that "affordable" prices could be as much as 80 percent of market price - maybe $320,000 for new construction versus $260,000 for a 40B unit. He said affordable units are always less than market value in order to keep someone from "flipping" an affordable unit to make a quick profit.

"Truthfully, no one is making up that difference [in property taxes] right now," DiMartino told Coggans, although another state program made up for any school costs associated with 40B housing and their lower property taxes, he said.

Connors said that the 40B price for new construction came in at around $200,999 in 2005, meaning it would be affordable to a household earning up to $56,000. DiMartino said some people might say that this was not particularly affordable, but that the program was designed for working families perhaps more than the poor. He added that there was a 70 percent local preference built in, meaning that percentage of units would be made available to local residents.

Coggans asked if accepting the plan could prevent someone from building 300 units of housing with an affordable component. DiMartino said the Board of Appeals would still need to accept the application and hold a public hearing. If Millbury had a housing plan in place and 76 of those units were deemed affordable, it would buy the town a two-year moratorium, but "you would have to go ahead and build it."

Having an approved plan did not mean that the town could close the door on 40B "right away," he said. It was also likely that the state could lower its number of units per year requirement, meaning that the town might only need to come up with 25 affordable units each year to stay current with the plan. Right now the town is at 4.3 percent affordable units in town, and the state standard is 10 percent.

Selectman Fran King said one of his concerns about the plan was that 40B took control away from the town on issues such as lot size. He noted that the last section of town remaining to be developed is West Millbury and that this area is on the verge of being sewered, but there is no town water. King said he was concerned that well water would be leaving in the form of sewer outflow without being replenished in any way.

DiMartino said that while 40B projects override virtually all local zoning laws, the are still subject to environmental regulations. He said the town could also argue that losing the water was a threat to public safety and fight it out on those grounds. He said he believes that some communities didn't extend sewer lines for 40B reasons, but was unsure if the water issue alone is enough to deny a project.

The board unanimously approved Connors' housing plan. Connors asked Board of Selectmen Chairman Bernie Plante to sign a letter endorsing the plan that she could send to the state.

At Connors' request, the board also approved the deed acceptances for the following subdivision roadways accepted at the annual town meeting: Bella Rosa Drive (but not the maintenance of any drainage; that remains the responsibility of the homeowners association), Haywood Glen II, and Hidden Meadow Drive.

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